


Young Lexa Deals With The Loss Of Her Parents

by HurricaneJane



Series: Quality Ingredients One Shots [19]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Dealing With Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:00:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27589894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HurricaneJane/pseuds/HurricaneJane
Summary: The Tumblr Ask:In the upcoming chapters of QI will we see lexa grieve? It would have to be a flashback, but I think it would be interesting. How do she and Anya handle funeral arrangements, postpartum, the business transition, is this when lexa starts sleeping around?Takes place in the past, Lexa is 18, fishing up high school and coping with the whirlwind of her parents' passing and starts to become the adult she has been for so long.
Series: Quality Ingredients One Shots [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589668
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Young Lexa Deals With The Loss Of Her Parents

It all felt like it was taking longer than it should. Lexa felt numb the whole time.

Their bodies were recovered by the Coast Guard down south and flown back home. Lexa’s parents shared their funeral. Anya’s mother’s was separate. All of the caskets were closed. Her father’s team handled the logistics. They had arrangements and affairs in order. Lexa had to sign off to pay for it, and the stroke of the pen carried the weight of her new life.

Gus and Anya stood in the receiving line with Lexa at the wake. Her grandparents all passed young. She didn’t have any siblings. She had a few cousins on her mother’s side, but she didn’t know them well.

Her parents were well connected and influential. Their funeral backed up traffic through surrounding towns. Private jets from all over the world landed at the airport. It was massive.

Lexa couldn’t look at anyone’s faces as she kept her hands on the rails of her father’s casket. Gus tried to talk her out of being one of his pallbearers, but she wouldn’t have it. He took up the spot on her deceased father’s other side. They carried him together, in the front, and they went first.

It was hot that day. She ruined her suit.

First with sweat, then with tears, then with spilled booze, then when she threw the jacket on the floor while she got with one of the caterers in the pool house. Lexa was desperate to feel something, and the leggy blonde mixing drinks was happy to oblige.

She inherited everything. Every. Last. Thing. It took days just to topline review it all, and months to comb through all of the details. 

“Lexa?” her father’s assistant asked for the third time as she gently touched Lexa’s arm.

“What?” Lexa jumped. She was in the Woods Financial executive conference room for the fifth day in a row the week after the funeral. Grief took time, but business and money didn’t wait.

She wasn’t sure if she fell asleep or just zoned out.

“Are you with us, Alexandria?” one of the lawyers asked.

“Not fucking really, gentleman,” Lexa sighed at the circle of middle-aged white men detailing her new future. One of them smirked, but she didn’t notice it. 

Her father used to address them exactly the same way. She was sitting in his chair by chance, and it was symbolic that the new Woods in charge had instinctually taken a seat at the head of the executive table.

“To be honest, boys, I’m fucking exhausted,” Lexa rubbed her eyes. 

“We’re almost through, Alexandria,” One of the lawyers she recognized more than the others tried. 

“Do you have to call me that?” Lexa yawned. She shot a look at one of the lawyers she knew a little better. “Did you tell him to call me that?”

“I’m sorry, that was what your father used to,” he cut himself off on her stare and cleared his throat. “We legally need to brief you on the remainder of the agenda and get your signatures on all of the transfer paperwork. Legal needs you downstairs before you leave today for signatures to assure all of the bank accounts are in your name. The property lawyers will be here tomorrow morning to get your signatures on the Canadian commercial and residential and all of the European properties. We’ll be taking care of personal assets later this-“

“Who takes care of selling the boats?” Lexa interrupted him.

“I’m sorry?” he puzzled at her.

“The boats. Are all of the boats mine now?” Lexa asked firmly.

“Swanson does that,” he pointed at one of the men across the table. Lexa shifted her gaze to him.

“Sell them all,” Lexa said sternly.

“Alexandria,” he tried again.

“Sell. Them. All.” Lexa’s voice took on new power and her posture stiffened up.

“Lexa,” another spoke up, trying to reign her in.

“Did I fucking stutter?” Lexa snapped. “Sell every last goddamn rowboat and dingy that we,” she paused, caught on the word.

There was no ‘we’ anymore.

It was only her.

“Sell every boat I own,” Lexa sat up straighter.

“Okay,” one of them nodded and made a note on his pad. “Consider them sold.”

“Lexa, do you need a minute?” the assistant asked carefully and quietly.

“No,” Lexa said coldly. “Let’s just get this over with.”

It dragged into the summer and it was constant. Stocks and bonds she didn’t understand. Balances of power in her mother’s company, movement of the board of directors in her father’s. She wasn’t technically an employee, but she owned them both now. She owned so goddamn much. She had to sign for this, make a choice on that, decide what happens to tens of thousands of people’s lives while she was barely an adult and had no idea what was happening to hers.

There were grief counselors and legal counselors and her regular therapist and a new psychologist. Her phone rang constantly with something someone needed from her. Somewhere she needed to be. What time the car was arriving, when she needed to drive herself, where she needed to be.

It was just too much.

Every night she filled the house with aimless parties. She didn’t want to be alone, but she didn’t want to talk either. Friends of friends she barely knew and people she didn’t care about, people she didn’t WANT to care about, drowned out by loud music and blurred by drugs kept her company. She drank through the wine cellar and found all of her father’s stashes. She fired the cleaning staff in a rage when they found her tangled up with a few women one morning on the kitchen floor surrounded by spilled beer and spent bongs.

On a particularly hot and humid morning in July, she didn’t show up for her morning briefing. She didn’t answer her phone, she didn’t answer the house phone, and didn’t come to the door when they sent a car. Knowing there was one last way they might be able to reach her, they called Anya.

“Jesus Christ,” Anya muttered as she picked her way through the trashed house. People were passed out all over. She recognized some of them from parties past. Lexa was nowhere to be found. Her bedroom was empty. There were two guys in the master bath. Pizza boxes left a trail from the front door to the back yard and Anya followed it.

Lexa was laying on a pool float in the center of the pool smoking a cigarette, drinking straight from a bottle of wine and eating a slice of wet pizza fully dressed and soaking wet.

“Hey!” Anya snapped. Lexa glanced up.

“Yo, Anya, what’s up?” Lexa slurred. “What are you doing here? I thought you were somebody’s mother now or whatever.”

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” Anya huffed. 

“Cause it’s been at the bottom of the pool since last night,” Lexa shrugged and took a drag.

“Everyone is looking for you! You were supposed to be at Woods Financial two hours ago!” Anya cried.

“I AM Woods Financial, baby!” Lexa held her arms outstretched. “Let ‘em come to me!”

“Lexa, get out of the pool, take a shower and get your shit together,” Anya folded her arms over her chest. “NOW.”

“No!” Lexa snapped. “I don’t wanna fucking go there today. I’m sick of it! Their stupid business is going to have to wait for me. I want to eat pizza and drink wine and stop existing for like, five fucking minutes!”

“Lexa!” Anya tried again.

“Anya!” Lexa mocked her.

“If you don’t get out, I’m coming in after you,” Anya warned.

“Fucking try it,” Lexa scoffed. Anya didn’t hesitate and jumped right in. She swam up to a surprised and drunkslow Lexa and flipped her float over.

“Hey!” Lexa coughed when she broke through the water. “What the hell!”

“Come on!” Anya barked and dragged Lexa to the steps and pushed her out. She climbed up next to her, grabbed one of Lexa’s arms and slung it over her shoulder to drag her drunk cousin over to one of the empty patio chairs to sit her down. 

“I’m not going, and you can’t make me!” Lexa coughed and spit out more pool water.

“I’ve been sitting back and letting you do this bender thing, but you’ve gone overboard now,” Anya said sternly.

“Lovely fucking metaphor to use at a time like this, don’t you think, you fuckin’ asshole?” Lexa picked up a bottle of vodka on the table beside her and took a pull, then hucked it into the pool. “They died on a fucking boat and you come up with bullshit like that? Do you even give a shit at all?!”

“Of course I give a shit!” Anya threw her hands up. “Why do you think I’m here?!”

“Because they’re not!” Lexa shouted back. She started herself with the truth and the words sank deeper. “I’m all alone,” Lexa’s face scrunched up and she covered it with a shaky hand. “Because nobody’s coming to get me anymore.”

She broke.

Lexa dropped her face into both hands and sobbed. Her whole body shook. Anya sat down beside her and hugged her close.

“I came to get you,” Anya said quietly. 

“They made you,” Lexa coughed on her sobs.

“Yeah, they called me,” Anya shrugged. “But I was already on my way.”

Lexa didn’t say anything. She turned into Anya’s open arms and buried her face in her shoulder. After several minutes of a silent embrace, Anya reached for her handbag and dug out her phone.

“Hey, yeah, it’s me. I found her, she’s at the house,” Anya said quickly into the phone, but kept one arm firmly around Lexa. “She’s not coming in today,” she paused for a response. “Then email it to me and I’ll have her sign it. She’s not coming, and that’s final. The kid needs a fucking break! This isn’t just business to her. He was her goddamn father!”

“Thank you,” Lexa whispered between sobs. She clung to Anya with both arms. “I’m so, so tired.”

“I know,” Anya tossed the phone aside and held Lexa close. She kissed Lexa’s wet hair and squeezed her close. “I know, Kid.”

“Where’s your son?” Lexa swallowed past her sobs and sniffled.

“My dad has him,” Anya replied.

“Can you stay with me today?” Lexa choked out in a shaky whisper.

“Of course,” Anya rested a protective hand on the back of Lexa’s head and squeezed her even closer. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”


End file.
